


The Paris Akuma Prevention Hotline

by Lila17



Series: The Paris Akuma Prevention Hotline [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I'm too talkative in the tags probably, Math, Phone Calls, domestic regular civilian Parisian life in the midst of all this, hotlines, i don't even know what else to tag this, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 05:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10678626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lila17/pseuds/Lila17
Summary: A little idea I had a while ago. I mean, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?





	The Paris Akuma Prevention Hotline

"Hello?"

"Hello, this is the Paris Akuma Prevention Hotline. Are you okay?"

The girl's voice came hesitantly over the line. "I failed a test today that I studied really hard for and I- oh god, I'm sorry, that's probably stupid. I'll just go-"

"No, it's fine. No problem is too small. That's the point of this, right? Anyway...can you tell me more about what happened? Which subject was the test on?"

There was a small exhale over the line, and the girl continued, a little less hesitant. "It was math."

I nodded. "Yeah, I feel you there. Math was not my best subject in school. Have you been struggling for a while, or was there anything distinctive about today that made you more upset than usual?"

A pause. "I guess I have been struggling for a while? But today it really affected me because, I don't know, I've been trying really hard recently to turn my grade around and it felt like things were really looking up and then...I failed."

"That's tough," I said quietly. "I mean that sincerely, that must have been hard on you. It’s okay to feel bad about that.”

There was a quiet chuckle on the other end of the line, but a small hint of a sob inside it. “Isn’t this the Akuma Prevention Hotline? Aren’t you supposed to be making me feel better as quick as possible so I don’t get Akumatized, instead of agreeing with me?”

“Well yeah, that’s what we’re doing, but that’s also not how it works. If I just told you a bunch of stuff about looking on the bright side and trying to be happy, you’d just feel worse, wouldn’t you?”

Another pause. “Yeah, probably.”

“Well, then, I wouldn’t be doing my job, now would I? I’ve taken a lot of these calls and I feel like there’s a really prevalent feeling that it’s somehow the person’s fault for feeling bad. But it isn’t.  
Tons of people get into bad situations and are upset every day; akumas appear because some guy took advantage of that. It’s not the person’s fault, they were upset, sure, but they didn’t choose for it to happen, and people don’t deserve to feel like they’re at blame. Hawkmoth is the one creating akumas, not all of us.”

I felt like I could actually hear the girl slowly digesting this and taking it in on the other end of the line. “That’s actually a really nice way of thinking about it,” The girl said softly, finally. 

A beat of silence passed between us.

“Anyway,” I started again, “I got a little off track. It is hard to not achieve what you wanted to achieve, especially when you’ve failed before. But you clearly care about it, so it’s definitely not from a lack of trying, you just need a little help to figure this out. Unfortunately, I can’t really help you directly since math isn’t exactly my area of expertise, but I can suggest some resources or tips that might help you get a better score on the next test. How does that sound?”

“That sounds pretty good, thanks.”

I nodded again, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “Yeah. Just try to keep in mind that it isn’t your fault, either way. It’s a lot of what gets me through the day. Oh, and, because we’re technically required to ask this: are you feeling any better now?” 

She thought about it for a second, then said, “Yeah. I think I do, actually, a little. Thanks for this.”

“No problem.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was sort of embarrassed of this for some reason and didn't really want to post it, but even if I've failed at writing and posting every day, I still want to post whatever I write when I do write. I haven't even reread this or edited it at all, and I sort of feel like somehow it turned into something different than what I expected to write, but I'm not sure what that something is. The whole thing about the girl and the math is probably me projecting tbh. I might make this into a series at some point, and write about other stuff she does as part of her job, how this thing got started, the worst case scenario when a person calls but still gets akumatized right in the middle of the call. Also maybe some more domestic stuff, because I'm a complete slut for imagining what it's like for ordinary people living their lives in universes like these. Anyway. 
> 
> I feel like there was something else I wanted to mention here but I can't remember what it was, so-
> 
> Oh right OKAY I know it wildly does not make sense that the person working at the hotline would say goodbye to the girl like 5 seconds after she said she was going to give her math resources but I didn't want to include her actually talking about math resources and couldn't figure out another way to end it, so. Yeah.


End file.
